


Drop of Treason

by the_wrote



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Drug Use, Exiles, F/F, I can't think of any more tags because this is just the introduction so..., Kadara Port, Queen vs Queen, Stay tuned for more tags, Uprising, is trash city big enough for the two of them?, the collective - Freeform, will update characters and tags as chapters are added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-27 02:16:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10799601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wrote/pseuds/the_wrote
Summary: Whether she likes it or not, Sloane has become the de facto Queen of Kadara Port, though her rule has not been a gentle one. Too bad for her that Aria slept through the first uprising, and the Pirate Queen of Omega has more than a drop of treason in her veins.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anyways, this is why you shouldn't put ideas in my head about my two favorite Queens kissing.

It was the nicest thing he could do for her, even if she wouldn’t see it that way. It was a hell of a lot more effort than she deserved and surely she would be able to appreciate that. He could have slit her throat, floated her, or sold her in bits and pieces to the highest bidders. Who wouldn’t pay to have a chunk of Aria T’Loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega, reduced to a finger or an ear pinned to the wall? 

She had never been this kind. Kept him around like a pet, a trophy, a living relic. A constant reminder of her strength and cunning. 

He sure as shit had never forgot her cunning, which is exactly why she had to go. 

“The price has changed. Double the credits or we thaw her out.”

If Patriarch had been a younger krogan, he would have ripped the man’s head off. Squished it between the heels of his palms. He was a scrawny human, nervous and jittery, always looking over his shoulder like he expected his own shadow to stab him in the back. It would be easy to squish his head. 

His rage may have shriveled up inside him, leaving him hollowed and dry like a husk, but no one besides those who had known him during his glory days knew how far he had fallen. They were all dead. Except the one, who was now a popsicle. 

“Why would I pay you double?” he grumbled, inching closer, his bulky form casting the man in darkness. 

Poor, squishy human. He recoiled as if he had been spat on, his hands covering his face as he hunkered over, his instinct to protect his soft stomach useless against a krogan. No doubt his testicles were heading north.

“They m-moved the timeline up, I don’t know why! But n-now I have less time to figure a place for her. I - I will have to bribe -“ 

“I stick to the original deal and add the extra benefit of not cramming my hands down your throat, assuming you have a spine to rip out.” Patriarch raised his massive hands as he spoke, purple and pink light illuminating them with flecks of garish confetti from the strobe overhead.  

The life blood of the Afterlife was the music, a constant throb and hum that shook bones and rattled teeth. It had its disadvantages during meetings, especially for an old man like himself. Sometimes the music chased away his thoughts, his grasp on consciousness tenuous after so many battles and so much time.

Today, it didn’t matter what the man said back to him, his lips flapping useless, gums popping saliva as he forced a smile. All that mattered was the look on his face, fear draining the color from his face. Patriarch heard the reply in the rush of blood singing through his veins. _Thump, thump, thump._

It sounded like the Afterlife. 

It sounded like the blaring of trumpets, his kingdom reclaimed. 

He watched from the couch as they came to take her. The imprint left from her long resting laurels would take time to stamp out, but for now he left it, an homage to the former royal ass. 

Royalty deserved a better coffin than a white, bulky refrigerator. She deserved better pallbearers than the clumsy fools who struggled to hold the weight between them. He couldn’t see her face, the window fogged from the last of her breaths as they had collected against the glass, but he closed his eyes and pictured her face the way he always preferred her: at rest, her brow smooth, lips just barely turned up at the corners. 

He had thought about slipping a note against the curve of her palm, writing his name and apologies and pressing it over her heart. In the end he hadn’t done anything except stash a bottle of her favorite poison in the crook of her arm. 

Well, royalty may have deserved a better coffin, but a real queen deserved a knife in her back. They would both have to make do with what they had. 

* * *

 

Crash site recovery was dirty work. It required heavy tools and quick feet. It required a strong stomach, something Sevus had learned during his first raid in the Badlands of Kadara. Now he was an old pro, and old pros got the luxury of being choosy with their hauls. 

“Somethin’ is burning up real pretty on the radar! Has to a big bugger by the look if it, maybe a merchant ship?” Bromwell tapped a stubby finger against the radar welded onto the dashboard of their off-road cruiser. He traced a path from where they were parked to where the blimp had flashed. “That’s just a ten minute ride if we drive fast.” 

“I just ate,” Sevus complained. 

“That slop ain’t food,” his human companion teased. 

“More nutritious than whatever it is you shove in your mouth.” 

Sevus’ mandibles flared in disgust as Bromwell licked his fingers, making an obvious extra effort to slobber. 

“All that’s beside the point,” he said, smacking his lips. “Let’s go check it out, come on Sev. It’s been days since we pulled a good haul and somethin’ that big will draw ina lot of curious faces.” 

It was no use arguing with him, especially when he had just eaten peanut butter. But Sevus could at least take his time sliding behind the wheel. He adjusted the seat. Groomed himself as he looked in the mirror, brushing stray crumbs from his dextro crackers away from the corners of his mouth.

“Ah hurry up, princess!” 

The two speed off, the fat tires of their six wheeled buggy spraying dirt and rocks behind them. 

For some, the aftermath of Sloane’s uprising had been even more chaotic than the coup itself. It wasn’t just those who had been fighting, not only ardent opponents of the Nexus leadership, that had been severed from the safety nets provided by the Initiative. There were those who had been a little too sympathetic, who had been slower to lob their support at Tann. 

Somewhere along the line their names had been added to a list and they tasted the boots of bureaucracy when it came time to pass down a ruling on the crimes of Sloane. 

Sevus had been a botanist and Bromwell… well, Bromwell didn’t talk much about what he had done before and Sevus knew better than to pry. 

Not that it mattered. They were all exiles now. 

Bromwell let out a high pitch whistle between his missing front teeth as they approached the smoking wreckage. As soon as the cruiser bounced to a halt, he was out the door, eager as ever to be the first to run his fingers over the salvage. Sevus killed the engine and followed. 

The ship had been big. Not big enough to be an ark or anything that would make them credits for selling the crash site location, but big enough that there was sure to be something good hidden behind the warped, smoldering metal. 

There was a lot to see, a lot going on, but the stasis pod caught his eye right away. It was half hidden, covered by a collapsed shuttle wall, but there was no mistaking the shape and blinding white color. 

This was a good find. As gross as it was, as much as it offended his former sensibilities, bodies went for a lot of credits in the Badlands. And a surprising number of people had gone to sleep with jewelry on. None of that stuff mattered to ghosts: flesh, bones, gold, gems, it was all his for the redistributing. 

“Here’s a pod,” he called to his friend, picking a path through the smoke and metal towards the jackpot. 

This wasn’t his first pod and he knew exactly where to find the emergency release. Knew just the right amount of pressure to apply to the latch to expose the treasure hidden inside. 

Ugh, it creeped him out that he thought like that. _But hey_ , he reasoned, cramming his crowbar into the barely visible crevice that would pop the hood, _if it buys me dinner…._

She must have been working on it from the inside because as soon as the lid had lifted, she was on her feet, her fingers curled like a claw. He felt the pressure against his neck like she was touching him.

There was blood stained across her fingertips, her nails chipped and worn away to nubs. 

“Who the fuck are you and where the fuck am I?”


	2. Chapter 2

It was the human who broke the spell, the sound of his feet dragging across the dirt jarring Aria from her trance like fixation on the turian’s neck in front of her.

She lowered her hand and released him but kept a undulating orb of energy held in her palms as a show of intent. He stumbled back and gagged, his fingers wrapping around his neck as he checked the damage she had done. 

“Ah fuckin’ shit! No way it’s you!” A human face came into view, his arms laden with metal beams and various strewn cargo. His shoulders sagged, the scavenge tumbling to the ground, causing him to shriek in pain as the heap landed on his foot. 

“It’s me,” she confirmed, her feet tentatively reaching for ground as she stepped from the hollow of the pod. She scuffed her boots across the dirt as she fought to keep her balance. Feeling solid ground beneath her feet, her spine stretched tall and straight, felt foreign. It was almost like she was adjusting to -

She pivoted on her toes and vomited. 

“Oh spirits,” one of them mumbled behind her. 

If Aria had been feeling even a quarter like her real self, she would have ripped the both of them apart. For bearing witness to her sorry state and for having the nerve to comment on it. But she couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t find her bearings between dry heaving and vomiting up the remnants of her meal back at the Afterlife.

“Do you know who that is?” one hissed behind her. 

“Shut up. Give me the water, give it here.” 

She ignored them and hunched over to let loose the contents of her stomach once more. As she leaned back over the pod, a glint of blue, illuminated by sun over head, seized her attention. It was a bottle, she realized, squinting to focus. She didn’t dare touch it, not now at least, but the tinted glass and long neck were unmistakable: Noverian Rum. Her favorite. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” she breathed. She gripped the sides of the pod and pulled at the filaments of energy that coursed through her, heard the groan of warping metal as she made a fist. “You have got to be  _ fucking kidding me. _ ”

She had no idea where she was, couldn’t explain the hangover that left her retching and shaking, but now she at least knew who to thank for her miserable current state. The anger and clarity quelled the acidic rolling of her stomach and allowed her time to breath.

She took a moment to compose herself, withdrawing the biotic force that covered her hands and arms before turning to the wary faced scavengers behind her. The turian held a canteen close to his chest, his mandibles opening and closing as he looked her over. The human, scrawny and dirty, half hidden behind his friend, kept his eyes directed at his own feet. 

_ That _ was the one who had recognized her, she recalled.

“What do you do on my station?” she asked, looking over the turian’s shoulder to his sallow faced companion. 

“Uh, I…” He grimaced and stepped out from behind his friend to face her fully. “Nuthin’, I just know who you are.” 

“And you?” Aria questioned, her cold gaze swiveling to the other.

“This idiot here?” the human answered. “Nah, he was a real clean type, plays with flowers.”

“I do not  _ play _ with flowers.” The turian giggled nervously, his eyes flickering between the two. “I am a botanist,” he chirped, his voice high with pride. 

She sneered. That he would think she cared to know what he did was insulting. He flinched away from the ice in her eyes, his shoulders dropping in a similar fashion to his friend’s. As an afterthought, he extended his arm, offering her his canteen. 

“You need to drink some water,” he advised. “You’re going to feel out of it for a while. I mean, usually they wake us up with a doctor nearby. Uh, I think this is a little outside standard protocol.” 

It would have been foolish to show her hand, despite how desperate she was becoming to clear the confusion that fought to overwhelm her anger. None of what he said made any sense, but she reached out to take the canteen, inclining her head as if she understood. 

“You should eat,” he was saying now. “And get some rest. I know it feels weird, I thought so too, to sleep after being out for 600 years but that’s what - “

Water dribbled down her chin. “What did you just say?”

“Uh, what?”

“600 years?” Ice dripped through her veins, chilling the nerves as icicles formed down her spine. “What did you just say.” Not a question this time. A demand.

The two exchanged looks, the turian flexing his mandibles in panic and the human looking even paler than he had been a moment before.

“You tell her,” the human whispered.

“No way. You know her, you tell her.”

“You have the science brain.”

“ _ Science brain is not a real thing _ !”

“Enough!” Aria’s patience was wearing thinner and thinner as the bickering continued. She was angry, tired and confused, a dangerous combination that made her feel murderous. The air smelled like sulfur and she felt the water sloshing in her belly, threatening to come back up at any moment.

She took a step towards them, followed by another as they backed away in unison. “Are you forcing me to ask again?”

They looked at each other, at her, and then in different directions. She inhaled and exhaled slowly, audibly, waiting until the count of three before she ripped their throats out.

“We can’t here,” the human finally said, motioning the wreckage around them with his hands. 

“We have a vehicle nearby,” the other explained. “We should go back to… to our place.” Another nervous glance between the two. 

It took her only a few heartbeats to work out her options and what would be in her best interest. Brute force wouldn’t answer her questions. There was little choice but to go with them. Kill them later maybe, if need be, but not now.

“Fine.” She finished the water, her tongue flicking against the mouthpiece to catch every last drop.

“This is going to be such an awkward ride,” the turian said as he reluctantly lead the trio. 

* * *

 

She learned their names but declined sharing hers. If Bromwell knew who she was, let him tell Sevus, adding in whatever flare or flavor he preferred. She was already too close to them, forced to rely on them for shelter, water and, most importantly, information. 

The ride - cramped in the vehicle, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder - gave her plenty of time to think about her next move. Getting back to Omega was priority one, but she was willing to hold off until she found out more information about how long she had been…  _ out of commission _ . A lot of damage could be done by the right sort of stubborn krogan with a list of her crimes as tall as she was. 

If they were right and it had been  _ 600 years _ worth of damage…. The thought made her stomach coil and she clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. No, she couldn’t believe that just yet. 

Their “home” was little more than a shanty, dilapidated and in need of a fourth wall. She could imagine what it must have looked like once, but it had long lost it’s charm. From the black marks that scourged the side, she would wager that it was a grenade that had done the structure in.  

“Charming,” she said as she followed them up the stairs and into the gaping wall that served as their door. 

“Can I offer you anything?” Sevus asked weakly, as if he was playing host to a visiting dignitary.

Bromwell at least hunkered down to business, throwing information at her like it burned him to hold it in. 

The Andromeda Initiative was not a surprise to her, though she nodded thoughtfully as he mentioned it. She had heard of what they had been trying to do and thought it was a stupid, reckless plan. They had even come sniffing around Omega once or twice before she sent them scurrying out of her orbit.

“…and that’s how we ended up here,” Sevus finished, having picked up the story after Bromwell refused to continue for being corrected one too many times. “I couldn’t pay protection fees, no one really cares about investing in roses out here, and I found Bromwell….”

Aria stopped listening.

It was almost a plot that deserved recognition for its brilliance. To drug her - the exact point at which this had occurred still unknown to her, her memory hazy and as full of holes as the Patriarch should have been - and ship her across dark space was… impressively devious.

Too bad she didn’t make it a habit of admiring other’s plots against her. 

“Thank you for the unnecessary information about your career.” She interrupted Sevus’ before he could tell her any more about the importance of growing flowers for aesthetic, not just substance, in space.

She looked the two over, weighing their worth to her with the shrewd eyes of a woman used to taking what she needed from others. Even if they didn’t offer it themselves, there was always something she could take, a secret kernel hidden within others that only needed the right words. 

Figuring out how to trick others into playing directly into her hands was a specialty of hers. 

600 years away from home was not an ideal situation for her to find herself in. But then again, she had said the same thing what was now a lifetime ago in the Milky Way, when she had crawled out of the wreckage of her last partnership gone sour and limped her way to Omega. She had seduced and killed and backstabbed her way up the food chain there, molding and placating the saps that ran the place before her until she was ready to strike. 

To be fair, last time she had begun with a more worthy crew, but she would have to make due with what she had in front of her. 

She settled on Bromwell, smelling the filth that had settled over his soul long ago. “Tell me about Sloane Kelly.” 


End file.
